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This study examined the relationship between aging and religious participation, focusing on changes in older people's formal participation in church life, informal or private religious practices, and attitudes towards participation in the church. Survey data from a random sample of older persons in a medium-sized northeastern city included both objective and subjective measures of health. Contrary to earlier studies which relied on subjective health as the sole indicator of health status, multiple regression analyses showed that health, especially as measured by health-related, functional limitations, serves an important mediating role. Older people experience greater functional limitations and, in turn, are less likely to engage in various church activities. These findings have important implications for the activity-disengagement debate within social gerontology and also for the concern in the sociology of religion with the role of religion in older people's lives.

This paper treats time and space as two central perceptual categories that are disrupted when an older person confronts new vision loss. Qualitative research findings are presented, describing (1) the “invisible,” “unknowable,” and “hostile” relationships to objects and space often experienced by older persons with recent blindness; and (2) the consequent disruption of their previous ordering of time. Such challenges to these perceptual categories force newly blind older persons to question their ability to manipulate the environment and to participate in social relationships. Consequently, these perceptual disruptions make them vulnerable to both self-imposed tentativeness and externally generated labeling processes that identify them as incompetent.

With few exceptions, previous studies of the relationship between age and religious participation have either ignored the nonorganizational aspects of participation or have used a single measure of participation. Following an approach adopted in studies of the structure of well-being, we investigate the multidimensional conceptualization of religious participation. The results demonstrate that (a) the empirical definitions for the dimensions of participation are invariant over age groups, (b) there is a convergence in individuals' organizational and nonorganizational participation in the later stages of the life cycle, and (c) the dimensions of religious involvement become more distinct and determinant with increasing age.

What has stigma to do with justice? On the face of it, the answer is obvious: little if anything. Stigma involves situations where one individual or group treats another individual or group as less than fully human. Justice involves the fair distribution of outcomes and the procedures by which distributions are arranged. The conceptual overlap looks slight, at first blush. It seems hardly surprising, then, that scholars rarely mention the two terms in the same breath except, perhaps, to note that societies stigmatize some lawbreakers or to comment on the injustice of some stigmas.